


and when again it's morning

by missveils (Missveils)



Series: Inquisitor Dáire Lavellan [16]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bisexual Solas (Dragon Age), Blood, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, Major Character Injury, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Protective Siblings, Vomiting, listen it's the trespasser experience, male lavellan/solas (implied), minor blackwall/female lavellan, solavellan (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missveils/pseuds/missveils
Summary: My partner requested the ending of Trespasser from the POV of their Inquisitor’s sister so here it is =‘)(yes it’s basically a rewrite of that no longer canon pavellan fic I wrote a while back but from Ellara’s POV)
Series: Inquisitor Dáire Lavellan [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694902





	and when again it's morning

**Author's Note:**

> CW: gore, graphic descriptions of injury, emetophobia

“Absolutely not.”

“You don’t give me orders, Thom,” Ellara snapped, looking up at him.

The bow was back on her back and she was wearing her travel clothes, her hair pulled out of her face with a leather band. Thom, Dáire, Cassandra, Dáire’s advisors, and a handful of guards stood around her as they would stand before an ocean wave.

“Ella, please.” Dáire stepped towards his sister, clutching the wrist of his gloved left hand. The Anchor still crept over the glove, over his elbow, pulsating through the veins under his shoulder.

Ellara looked at them both. The guards looked at Dáire too, unsure whether they should hold his sister back or not. 

“Is it because I’m pregnant?” 

“Ella-”

“Our mum still went out hunting days before you were born, Dáire.”

“It’s not the same!” 

Ellara could count with the fingers of one hand the times in their lives Dáire had shouted at her. And she would still fail to count any time he had shouted like this, equal times frustration and fear. 

She raised her arms, and then let them fall, defeated. She paced from one side of the room to the other, as if she was trying to just walk away from the whole situation. 

“So, what do you want me to do? Stay here? Go to bed while you are out there fighting a literal invasion? Not knowing if…”

And that’s when it dawned on her. 

What they had said about the Anchor. That it was rapidly killing him. That it had been killing him since the explosion at the Conclave and had only been stopped by Solas’ magic. And now he was nowhere to be found. (And if he knew, oh, if he knew, Ellara would track him down to the end of Thedas to make him pay)

But that was when it hit her full force.

This was probably the last time she was seeing her brother alive.

Taking two steps towards her brother, she held his face between her hands. Just as her throat started to hurt with contained tears, she hugged him close to her. She had raised him basically since he was a child. He was breathing, his heart was beating. And in a few hours, both might have stopped. He was going to be taken away from her. Just for having been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Her sobs came quiet at first, as she tried to hide them. Then in a long, drawn-out scream. Dáire’s hands shook as he rested them on her back.

The Anchor flared. Ellara could feel the heat on her back and the ringing of magic in her ears. Dáire closed his hand into a fist but did not let go.

“Lavellan…” Cassandra’s voice and her hand on her shoulder.

Ellara slapped it off.

“Shut up! This is all your fault!” She looked around the whole room. “If it weren’t for your stupid wars, your stupid god, we would be home now!”

Dáire broke up the hug, still holding her arms tightly.

“I am going to be okay, Ella.”

It was a statement, but it sounded like a question. His voice, his eyes, his hands were saying _Please say I’m going to be okay, please just say yes._

What else could she do? What else had she always done, other than tell him everything was going to be okay over and over again? She nodded and wiped her eyes and her nose. Then she turned to Thom, who immediately held her hands between his. A small comfort.

“Please, bring him back…” Her words died. Bring him back, what? Alive? In one piece? She could not ask him to promise any of that. Instead, she just repeated: “Please.”

“You have my word, my lady.”

He kissed her hands. Then her forehead. After one long look at her face, he turned and crossed through the Eluvian.

Ellara held Dáire’s arm before he crossed and looked at him in the eyes. And her next words were both a reassurance for him and for her herself.

“Banal nadas.”

Dáire nodded. And turned.

And crossed out of sight.

Ellara stood, looking at the rippling surface of the mirror, as her sobs started creeping up her throat again. She saw Cole at the corner of her eye. She did not let him speak. 

“If you want to make me happy, bring him back.”

“We walk towards the healer with the bloodied hands.”

“What…? Cole, I’ve heard that be-“

But all that was left was another ripple in the mirror.

-

Ellara refused to walk back to her quarters. Or to move at all.

She sat in front of the Eluvian, staring at the ripples, wondering if the next one would herald their return. 

Someone took her bow and arrows at some point. Someone wrapped her in a blanket.

She was pretty sure it was Sera who had brought a plate of food from the tavern, now cold and untouched next to her.

But it was Leliana that stepped into the room and sat next to her, the ornaments on her Divine outfit jingling. Her hand rested on Ellara’s shoulder.

And she did something Ellara had not seen her done in all these years.

She sang. And she told her stories. And she didn’t let the silence fall over them until sunrise.

It would never be written in a history book. If any of the guards recorded it in their journals, no one would believe it.

But that night, deep within the Winter Palace in Halamshiral, Divine Justinia sat on the floor with a Dalish elf, with her friend, and sang to her as she cried.

-

The room had no windows, so Ellara could not tell how long it had been. It was probably past sunrise when Cole stepped through the threshold of the Eluvian. He looked at her and said.

“He helped him. He saved him. Please believe-“

His voice died out as she stood.

“What is going on? Where is Dáire?”

In that second, Thom stepped through the Eluvian, his armor covered in blood and dust, but he was alive.

And he was holding-

“Dáire.”

She walked up to Thom and looked at her brother. He was deathly pale but he was breathing, shallow breaths, but he was breathing. He was breathing.

“We need healers!” shouted Thom and the guards rushed out of the room.

“What’s wrong with-?” Ellara started, but Dáire’s eyes opened and she shifted as he took one deep ragged breath. And she saw his left arm.

Charcoal-black. A cauterized wound. Raw, discolored skin, creeping up to his face. The remnants of bone-breaking the skin like arrows sticking out of a wound. 

“Ella…”

He pushed Thom away and reached for her. Ellara quickly caught him in her arms. He was shaking so much. His heart beat so fast and hard she could feel it through his clothes. 

“What happened? Dáire, what happened to your arm?”

“Ella, Solas…”

He looked back at his arm and retched. He was sick on the floor. His eyes rolled back and he immediately went limp again in her arms. Ellara held him tight and looked at Thom with wide eyes.

“That is all he has said since I found him,” said Thom.

The healers pushed into the room but she refused to hand Dáire over. She held him on her arms and squared her shoulders.

“We need to take him-“

“Lead the way.” She replied.

“My lady-“

“I carried him in my arms for years. I will carry him now.”

They guided her through the courtyard and up the stairs of the palace to a room they were preparing for him. The inquisition soldiers stuck together around her to keep the Orlesian nobles pacing around from seeing what was going on.

Ellara finally let the healer hold Dáire and bring him into the room.

The door closed and she sat on the floor again. At least this time it was carpeted. Thom sat right next to her.

“Have you slept?”

Ellara shook her head.

He wrapped an arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. Only with Thom’s arms around her, she allowed herself to close her eyes.

-

When she opened them again she was glad to find out that no one had moved her to a bed. She was not even sure if she had slept at all. 

A healer gently shook her shoulder as Thom snored next to her.

“Madame Lavellan? We need you. We have managed to save the rest of the Inquisitor’s arm but we are still working to stabilise him. He… He has woken up and refuses to let anyone near him unless he speaks to you first.”

Ellara stepped into the room and saw piles upon piles of sheets drenched in blood. She ran towards the bed. Dáire was paler than before, deep purple circles under his eyes, and his whole hair drenched in sweat.

“Dáire, please let them help you. You need to rest.” Her voice was soft.

“No, Ella. If I don’t make it…” He grasped at her hand with a very warm clammy hand. “I need you to hear this. You and no one else.”

She leaned close and listened to the few words Dáire whispered in her ear. As he spoke her eyes widened and the breath caught in her lungs.

Solas. Fen’Harel. His plan. Dáire’s arm.

“I’m going to kill him,” she said.

“No, Ella, he saved my life,” Dáire breathed and closed his eyes.

Ellara held his hand tightly for a moment and then stepped back as the healers rushed back in. Taking one last look back, she stepped out and gently shook Thom awake. He blinked a few times and yawned.

“Is everything alright?”

“Thom, please tell me everything that happened after you left.”

-

It was sunset when the healers finally cleared out the room, as Ellara sat next to Dáire. Some colour had returned to his face and his breaths were steadier but he was still running a slight fever.

“Do you know how to change the bandages and clean the wound?” one of the healers asked, before leaving. 

“Yes.”

“Don’t let him sleep on his left side.”

The healer left and as the door clicked closed, Dáire opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. 

“You should sleep, you know,” Ellara whispered. 

Her brother shook his head and turned on his right side. She could see him flinch when he felt the lack of the weight of his left arm. 

“I don’t want to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. I don’t know if it’s him, or demons, or both. But I don’t want to sleep.”

Ellara clenched her jaw and swallowed the hurtful words that were about to leave her mouth. Whether he saved her brother or not, she was certain she was going to find and kill Solas. 

The bed creaked as she lied next to her brother, as they slept years ago back in the clan. She reached with her arm across him. 

“I will go to sleep first. You know how to find me.”

And it wasn’t hard. The moment her head hit the pillow, her eyelids felt heavy and she fell asleep. 

It was always the same meadow. Ever since she had discovered, or suspected, she was a mage her dreams kept taking her to the same field of grass and primroses. She didn’t know what part of the Fade this was in, but demons did not like it at all. Too empty. Too calm. 

She walked around, feeling the grass under her feet and the wind on her hair. Absent-mindedly, she rubbed her belly with her hand. 

A loud but low, guttural growl behind her. She turned. 

A wolf, the size of a house. Its fur billowing dark in the wind and its six eyes fixated on Dáire, frozen in front of it. When it took a step forward, it stepped over the fragments of shattered statues. 

Ellara walked in front of Dáire. 

“Leave. I’m not scared of you.”

The wolf stared her down for a few seconds and then it dissolved into the form of a fear demon and skittered away. Ellara slumped down on the grass. 

“I’m sorry, I brought it here,” said Dáire.

“It’s alright. You can rest here, it’s fine.”

Dáire sat next to her. Only then she noticed he had both his arms here. He also looked much more healthy than in the waking world. 

A choir of voices filled the air around them, much louder next to her brother. They spoke in elven, so old she could not understand a word. 

“Is this what you are always hearing?” she asked. 

“It’s gotten worse since I saw him. It gets worse. They are not screaming now.”

She hugged her knees and realised they were both sitting exactly the same. 

“I thought this would be over,” she said. “You would address the Council and then the Inquisition would be no more and we could let all this fade into the past. That we could all rest for once. Especially you.”

“I had forgotten about the Council.” He sighed. 

“Don’t worry about that.” He started to speak. “If you think I care about war or politics at the moment, you’re mistaken. Those are at the bottom of my list.”

“Josephine will kill you.”

“She can try.”

They sat in silence for what seemed like hours, just watching the clouds roll over the field. There were many things she wanted to ask, but with the way he fixed his eyes in the horizon, the way he picked grass blades with his left hand, she realised he needed this moment of quiet. 

-

He slept and fought a fever for the next three days. Only waking up to eat. And she never left his side.

She let him walk into her dreams when his were unbearable. 

When she was unable to sleep, she watched over him.

He called for Solas in his sleep, sometimes he called for her. He called out apologies, whimpered, pleaded, shouted, tried to reach with his arms to someone who was not there.

Some nights, his eyes were open and glowed blue and he looked past her as he spoke in ancient elven, his voice terrifying. 

And sometimes he would open his eyes for a few seconds and just make sure she was still there. 

-

When he finally woke up, it fell upon Leliana to try and speak to Ellara and Dáire, since Ellara would not even answer the door to Josephine. 

And it took Ellara shouting at the Divine at the top of her lungs and almost causing another international conflict, for Dáire to get out of the bed on shaky legs and put on his uniform. 

“You don’t have to do this. Especially not now. You just stopped a war with Seheron,” Ellara grumbled as she helped him with his buttons. 

“It will be over after this.”

“You look terrible, by the way.”

“I am just sad about dissolving the Inquisition, I guess,” he replied, bitterly.

Dáire wrapped his right arm around Ellara’s shoulders and she helped him walk to the room where the Exalted Council was meeting. 

He walked inside the room by himself, his steps and movements now strong and confident. She watched from the gates to the room as he addressed the ambassadors and gave his speech. No wavering voice, not a single word out of place. She stared in amazement and pride at her brother as he dropped the book and turned to leave. 

Only when the gates closed behind them, he collapsed on her arms and threw up on the floor. He then chuckled.

“I’m not sure what I’ve said. But it’s over.”

He kept speaking as they made their way back to his room. 

“I am no longer the Inquisitor. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

He fell asleep still in his uniform as she helped him into the bed. 

\- 

“Where are you going after this?” He asked as she helped him wash his hair. 

He had asked the same question days earlier (but it felt like years ago), in a very different situation. Then, music played loudly around them and she had flowers in her hair. 

_They sat outside of the tavern, as she tried to wipe a wine stain from her wedding dress, for which Krem had apologised at least fifty times during the night._

_“So, where are you going after this? A second honeymoon, now with the dashing stranger Thom Rainier?”_

_She laughed._

_“I’m not sure. Varric has offered us a townhouse in Kirkwall.”_

_“You want to go to Kirkwall of all places? We have always avoided it.”_

_“I know. But the house is there and hopefully, things will be quiet until the baby is born. Varric says that the townhouse coincidentally has a nursery. How he found out, I have no idea.”_

_“Would you stay there?”_

_“Thom and I have talked about it sometimes. Once the baby is at least a year old we want to…” She seemed flustered. “We want to have a farm. Hopefully near Wycome, so I can visit the clan from time to time.”_

_“Aw, Ella, that is adorable. You are already thinking of retiring!”_

_She hit him with the rag she was cleaning her dress with._

But what was the answer now? Where was she going after this?

“There is no change of plans, Dáire. Whatever happens, this baby will be born and we keep living. I know I cannot make you come with me. But if you ever need help, to find him, to kill him, to drag his ass back home… I am always here for you. Whether the baby is out or not.”

“Thank you, Ella.”

“I do hope you come to meet the baby when it’s born.”

She knew he was smiling at that. 

“I will.”

They sat in silence, as she got a comb and started working on the days-old knots in his hair. She noticed his hand grabbing the edge of the bathtub so tightly his knuckles were turning white. 

His next words came in a barely audible whisper. 

“What if he succeeds? What then? What about you? What about your baby?”

She stopped for a moment and kept combing his hair. 

“Banal nadas, Dáire.”

_Nothing is inevitable._

**Author's Note:**

> dáire lavellan belongs to @littlegumshoe on tumblr  
> ellara lavellan is my OC


End file.
